Apart
by sarramaks
Summary: Flack muses over a difficult decision. FlackLindsay, DannyOC, FlackDanny? Please read and review


_This is a follow up to Alone, but you don't need to have read it to read this, though it might help. _

_No spoilers, so don't worry. Some angst. I promise a third instalment to tie this thing up. _

_Disclaimer: Not mine. _

Apart

"Don, do you want to get some dinner after my shift?" The voice seeped into his mind unwelcolmed. He was sat at his desk, going through some of the paper work the day had acquired after what had seemed like a massacre in the city. He glanced at the cold cup of coffee on his desk, another one he had forgotten to drink and pressed the phone closer to his ear to block out the sound of Vicaro's grating nasal voice retelling the events of the night before and just how he had made some girl scream out his name on three separate occasions.

"I'm not sure, Lindsay," he said, a cold feeling washing over him even though it was the height of summer and New York was enduring a heat wave that air conditioning could not negate.

"What if I just come round to yours then, we could get a pizza?"

He rubbed his head with his free hand, knowing the conversation that he had to have with her. "I think we need to talk," he said, his voice filled with tiredness. He hated himself for what he was about to do. He hated himself for the reasons why he was going to do it. But he knew it had to be done.

"Is something the matter, Don?"

He closed his eyes, glad she couldn't see the expression on his face. Yes, there was something the matter and she wasn't going to like what that something was, but she must know that this was coming. "We'll talk about it later," he said, not wanting to lie.

"Okay," she said, softly. He knew she was upset.

He hung up the phone feeling like the world's worst shit and pushed the pile of paper away.

"Hey, Flack," Vicaro's less than sweet tones blasted their way to him across the office. "You wanna go and have a few bears? Julio and Chris said they were going to shoot some pool."

Flack shook his head. That was almost the last place he wanted to be.

"Your call, Flack, your call."

The room fell silent as Vicaro left and Flack found himself alone with his thoughts and indecisions. He had been with Lindsay six, no, seven months. She was one of the nicest people he had ever met, kind, passionate, caring. For five of those months he had be almost consumed by her, spending too much time together to be healthy, too much time in bed, plaguing Mac so when he did the rota they got a rest day off together every once in a while.

He thought about her, her bubbly personality, the way she would always be enthusiastic and could rarely manage a bad word about anyone, including Vicaro. He knew that his parents, after meeting her twice, had decided that she would be the one to help provide them with grandchildren and for a moment, he'd even considered that himself.

For a moment.

And then his attentions had been transferred after waking up one morning to a realisation that he was treading the wrong path completely.

It had been raining, the fine drizzle that saturates on the sly. The day had never become light, the clouds over the city had lingered thick and grey, blocking the sun's attempts at heating up the city. The previous night had been a long one; a double homicide followed by a pile up caused by some lunatic driving after he'd spent the afternoon and evening drowning his sorrows because his 'baby had left him'. Unfortunately, he had not left the planet; it had been the four other people in the car in front who met their maker instead, and Flack finally went home wondering if there was such a thing as fairness and justice, or if it was all one big joke.

He had worked the second scene with Danny, Stella and a new cop, Fay, who he'd been working with for a couple of months. None of them could make light and brush off the scene, of the crime. It seemed crueller than usual. The victims had been a mother and her three children who were driving away from the man they knew as husband or father after the mother had finally plucked up the courage to leave. Without communicating, only sharing the necessary information, they had quickly built up the evidence against Paul Stewart so that Flack had actually been able to get home in time to grab some sleep before his next shift was due to start.

Then he had gone into work the morning after and seen the person he knew would change the rest of his life.

He wasn't one for momentous decisions and he didn't rely on fate, or even believe in it. For Flack, life moved by as it wanted, you took the chances it gave you and you lived each day as it came, sometimes getting a little angsty with Stella, maybe, when she talked too much about the evidence and sometimes spending too much time talking with Danny about shooting hoops or who won the game.

But that day had been different It had spun his whole world around so fast he had thought he was going to be sick.

After that he couldn't get them out of his mind. Every time he saw them he found his heart rate increase and knew that he was staring, gazing even, unable to take his eyes away from the person, the other half of him, that stood in front of him. And it became even harder to walk away, back to Lindsay, who was waiting for him, always, with her arms wide open.

Naturally, Flack, priding himself on being a gentleman, had filled those arms, closing his eyes when they were in bed together and trying not to allow himself to imagine being with the person who plagued his fantasies. He yearned, needed, to be able to feel their skin against his, to be able to touch them when he felt the urge and to feel their breath against him neck.

Instead, he had pulled Lindsay into his chest, murmuring to her the things he would have liked to have said to this other person, this tormentor, this no-lover.

Flack had never been in love before. There had been several lovers, most of whom he had been in a relationship with, a few one night stands, some with colleagues, but none had ever turned his world upside down. He'd began to believe that love was a myth, something that corporations used to bind the masses together and to sell extra cards at valentine's. Now he wondered whether Cupid had merely been saving up his sharpest arrow for this one hit, dumping the tip in the blood of some potent drug, making sure he was addicted as soon as the point cut into his skin.

He wished it had been Lindsay.

But it wasn't.

Lindsay called him as he was leaving the station. He almost switched his cell off as he saw her number flash up on the screen, but his parents had brought him up better than that. He thought of his mother's disappointment when she found out that he and Lindsay were no longer an item. He thought of how quickly Vicaro would probably try to take his place, although he knew Lindsay would never go there, she had too much taste for that.

Or did she? She had been with him for this long.

"Don?" He heard her voice and realised he hadn't answered her greeting yet.

"Sorry, my mind was elsewhere."

"I know we said I'd come round to yours, but Danny really wants a few people to go for drinks at the bar. Do you think you could manage to come?"

He noticed the way that she had confirmed her attendance but not his, as if she knew that they were no longer going to be a couple after the night's end. Suddenly, he felt a wrench in his chest at the thought of no longer being able to hold her, to run his fingers through her hair, or have her wake up, looking at him with the eyes he had once wanted to drown in and never swim out of.

"Yeah, I'll go straight there."

The bar was almost empty when he got there, just a few cops who had finished their shift at lunch time and were making the most of the free time, dunking their sorrows in whisky and beer. One of them stood up and made his way of to Flack, wobbling slightly as he approached.

"You're Don Flack's son, aintcha?"

Flack nodded.

"Good man, your father. I hear you're doing him proud, kid," the man nodded at him before placing his order at the bar. Flack wondered for how much longer he would be doing his father proud.

The room was already filled with a haze of smoke that he knew from experience would only get thicker as the evening grew older. The smell of stale alcohol was imbedded in every aspect of the room, a sickening smell, which reminded Flack of the times he and Danny had come here, drowning their sorrows or simply passing the time of day, rueing the fact that he couldn't find a good woman and Danny complaining about whatever girlfriend was being to clingy.

Flack remembered the hangovers, the mornings after and the headaches that hadn't gone away with an asprin and a coffee. Since he had been with Lindsay there had been less of that. He'd spent less time with Danny too, something that he regretted. He couldn't understand why being in a relationship meant not seeing as much of your friends. Whenever Danny had been seeing some girl he had still made time to shoot hoops or watch the game, or grab a beer, with him, nothing would change.

He remembered the night a few months ago, when everyone from the lab had come here after their shift and he and Lindsay had let other people see that they were together. Danny had behaved oddly that night. Even Flack, who had been too absorbed with the notion of finally having Lindsay stay the night at his apartment had noticed. Danny had drunk too much, had stared into space too much and had worried everybody – too much. Danny's morose mood had continued, until finally, one morning, he had turned up at a crime scene, looked at Flack and cracked a joke at Vicaro's expense. And then Flack had known that Danny was better, that the black dog had left him.

Flack looked at the door as Lindsay appeared with Messer, Stella, Mac, Fay and Hammerback. He wondered briefly where Hawkes was and then wondered why Fay was there. He looked at Danny stood close to her, his hand on the small of her back, his look attentive, and then it hit Flack like a ten ton truck. Fay was seeing Danny. Flack's eyes stayed glued on them as they went to the bar, Danny ordering Fay's drink in his thick accent, pushing his glasses further up his nose as was his habit. Fay was laughing at him, one hand resting on his shoulder, completely at ease. Flack watched as Danny turned to her and smiled; the full Messer grin. Flack had seen it used on Maka to great effect.

"Hey," a sad voice pulled his attention away.

"Linds," Flack felt another stab of sadness. She nodded and then looked poignantly in the direction of Danny and Fay.

"Remember when we first came here with everybody? Danny and Fay are doing the same thing. Fay told me today that she and Danny had been dating." Flack felt the ten ton truck roll over him again. Clearly Cupid was pissed at him for not believing in love and was making sure that he got the full force of the nasty side.

"It's over, isn't it?" Lindsay's words hit him.

He nodded, knowing that he was going to the deepest, darkest dungeon in hell and would rot in there, always thinking about what a wonderful girl he had let go. But he had to. He had to do this. She deserved more and he couldn't live a lie, letting it eat at him as he had been doing. Even if the person he did want was now unattainable, out of his reach – he still had to do this.

"I don't need to go back to your place, Don." She knew. She knew what it was that he had been going to say and rather than wait on tenterhooks she was calling it off now. It would be a mutual decision and instead of making Flack feel better it made him feel even less like a man.

He looked at her, pushing his lips together.

"I'm sorry, Lindsay."

"I know," she said. "Let's say we had a great time and it was good while it lasted. We can be friends."

He nodded. Why did she have to be so unreasonable when he was stood there feeling like the meanest shit in the world. She should have at least given him a slap or tipped a drink over him or something.

"I know that there's no one else – it's just run its course." He looked at her for a split second as she said the words and then had to look away, feeling pain when he looked in her eyes. He nodded to agree with her, knowing that in reality there was no one else, the person he wanted had just been caught and they were completely out of his reach. No, Lindsay was right; there was no one else.

Flack separated himself from the crowd, not even being amused when he saw Stella dancing with Hammerback, a sight that would usually be enough to give him the creeps. He watched as Danny and Fay stayed glued together, Danny at his most tactile, casting sly glances at her and her responding by the small touches she gave him. He had seen this dance with Danny before, he knew the moves. He would gradually lose interest and drift off with another pretty girl, but Flack couldn't help but think that this time something was different

"You okay?" He heard Hawkes' voice behind him at the bar.

"Lindsay and I have split up."

"Sorry to hear that. Let me get you another drink, ease the pain."

"The pain will still be there in the morning," Flack said, slamming down his now empty glass onto the sticky, wooden surface of the bar.

Hawkes nodded. "It will. But a little numbness helps. Gives the mind a break from its discomfort."

"Is that a medical evaluation, doctor?" Flack managed a smile.

Hawkes laughed. "No, simply experience. I've often found Mr Jack Daniels to be a good friend."

Flack nodded as he watched Danny lean down to listen to what Fay was saying. He watched him move his glassed further up his nose and his tongue sneak out and lick his lips. Flack knew he shouldn't be noticing these things, but he couldn't help it.

When Cupid shot his bow, he'd been looking at Danny Messer.

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Danny bent down to listen to what Fay had to say. She'd just come back from the bathroom with Lindsay, who looked like she'd been upset.

"Don and Linds had split up," Fay whispered, her eyes empathising with what Lindsay must have been feeling.

Danny looked up, his heart beginning to beat a little stronger and the blood pumping a little faster around his body.

He saw Don, stood at the bar with Sheldon, drinking the sad man's friend. He saw Don look at him, the bar not yet crowded enough to impinge their view.

He caught Don's eye, the two men observing at each other and an understanding was met. Danny felt it rush through every inch of him, every vein, every muscle, every sinew. He knew. They both did.

"Danny," he heard Fay's voice. "Let's dance."

_Let's dance indeed. _

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Please, please review. My stories on here have been getting lots of hits, but only a few reviews.

There will be a third part, called Let's Dance, but it will be rated M.

Thanks for reading.

Sarah


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